He\'s talking on the phone in his Washington D.C. hotel room between sips of a Diet Coke, his voice a muddied rasp.

The subject of discussion: how he got into writing in his mid-20s.

\"I was living-working in Tokyo,\" Coupland says, \"and I sent someone a postcard and she put it up on a fridge in Vancouver. The editor of a local city magazine read it and said, \'Hey, this guy can write.\' Two days later I was down in Beverly Hills investigating a guy that was doing art swindles, and it was fun and easy.\"